Glad to be back

I am so glad to be posting today. I have had a horrible couple of months with illness and have not been even remotely inclined to pick up my hooks and create. I have so much to catch up with, firstly the CAL I was following and I think I am about 6 squares behind and trying to stash bust too. I am going to be catching up on both projects this week and hopefully finish a star blanket that I started 3 months ago now. I have really missed my crochet but today is day 1 of thinking positive and starting to hook again.

My stash busting pet blankets are going to be having a new recipient. We had a little addition to our family last Friday and she is going to be needing snuggle blankets, so I am going to be making lots of small blankets both for my pets and to take to our local charity vet.

This is Cody she is a maltese cross and is only 9 weeks old. She is settling in nicely with our other 2 dogs. She is so tiny but she has a huge heart.

Happy Easter

Wishing everyone a very happy Easter. 

Happy Mother's Day

Just a quickie to say Happy Mother's Day to all us lovely mums. I hope you have all had breakfast in bed, lots of lovely gifts and going to be pampered for the rest of the day.

I have been spoilt today with a very nice Cath Kidston bag and a lovely bunch of flowers. Sorry no pics but I will take some when the sun comes out to play. Now for a lazy day with my new project which I will share on my next post.

Bargains up for grabs

Busy busy week this week. I have decided to close down my Sugarplum Cards business so that I can concentrate on my crochet life. so I have been photographing and organising items for sale.

I am having a sale night on Friday 13th March at 8pm. All items are priced and all are plus postage. I shall combine postage on Saturday morning and sent out Paypal invoices.

There is so much to add so why not pop over to my Facebook page and join the sale night link.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1055027791181260/

Spring is in the air

I started to make this lovely baby blanket about 4 months ago but it ended up in my wip (works in progress) box to which I have been adding to on a regular basis. Naughty I know but I can't help myself, I see so many nice patterns and have a rather lovely huge stash of various yarns that I have to play.  Well over the weekend I gave myself a good talking too because I can not move in my office/studio for boxes and bags. So lecture over I decided to concentrate on my wip box and complete one project at a time and get a little more organisation in my crochet life.

When I first started this blanket there were lots of comments on social media talking about Cath Kidston colours for inspiration. I thought that would be my next colour theme, so a cup of tea and hour on Pinterest, then a rummage through my stash and I came up with my Stylecraft Special DK in:

White, Sherbet, Spring Green, Lemon, Candyfloss and Pomegranate 

I used the trust V stitch for the pattern and completed the blanket with a simple two rounds of half trebles and one round of simple chains for a frilly effect.  The colours reminded me of spring so that's what I called it my springtime baby blanket, although it doesn't feel like spring is in the air today since its snowing again and hasn't stopped all morning. 

Mad Day at the Beach

We have a tendency in our house to have mad moments and just doing something, anything on a whim. Due to hubby not being well we don't plan anything specific so when he's feeling up to it we just go with the flow and see where the day takes us. Except yesterday was a definite mad moment. Kids on school holidays, eldest out with her boyfriend and the youngest 'bored' already, so hubby decided lets take the dogs for a walk on the beach at Mappleton over on the East Coast. We visited Mappleton last year and it was beautiful, lovely huge beach, you could walk for miles.

I thought it was a good idea so suggested that he check the weather for the area and times of the tide. It is approximately 80 miles from where we live and I was thinking it's a tad too far if the tide is in. I was assured that we were up for light showers and the tide was not an issue, so of we go. Car packed, Daughter in the back with a long face because we are dragging her away from her iPad which she is on FaceTime all day with her best friend and off we go. On route we decided fish and chips for lunch from Hornsea then on to Mappleton for the beach. Well I'm sure you won't be surprised if I told you that as we approached Hornsea the so called light showers were persistent rain. We parked up, found a fish and chip shop then sat soaked in the car while we ate them. Car completely steamed up and I suggested lets turn around and go home. It had taken us 2 hours to get to Hornsea. Hubby said we are already wet so why not just pop to the beach and see what it's like. So 6 miles down the road later we park up and yes you guessed it the tide was well and truly in. I had to ask myself what weather and tide information had hubby looked at because it was or he was wrong on all counts. Still there was a small patch of beach that we were able to get on and it stopped raining. Down to the beach we go, the dogs loved chasing the pebbles and getting their feet wet. Youngest though was not impressed.

Even though it was wet and the tide was in we and the dogs did enjoy ourselves. Daughter maybe not so much. A four hour round trip for a bag of chips and 30 minutes on the beach is a bit mad but thats who we are. Next time though I think will check the weather and tide reports.

Una's Donation

Last year the lovely Una from over at Great Balls of Wool blog donated lots of 4ply oddments that she had leftover and wasn't going to use. I agreed that I would use her donation to make something for charity. I sat yesterday and with my fabulous wool winder turned all these oddments

into 4 large mixed cakes (balls). I joined all the little bits together has I went and doubled it up by winding two strands together at a time. I ended up with a mixed pattern that changes all the time.

I decided to turn my donation into pet blankets. This is the start of my first one. As you can see by winding two strands together you get a thicker wool plus a mottled kind of effect.

I decided simple granny squares would be good with my trusty 4mm hook. I think I could possibly go up to a 5mm hook. I am making them 20 rounds in size and I will possibly have enough for 2 blankets, maybe even 3. So huge thank you Una for your donation. I kind of enjoyed winding it all.

I shall post a photo of the completed blankets when I have finished.